Microsoft will be shutting off the license servers that authorize customers computers to play these DRMed tracks. MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31.

"As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play," says the email. How nice.

By the way this also means that upgrading your operating system will stop these paid tracks from playing after August 31, 2008! That's right, users would need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to say, Windows Vista. If you get a new computer, goodbye music. You can authorize up to five Windows computers to play these tracks, but they can not be changes after the August 31, 2008 cut off date.

Microsoft claims the license is not expiring though. This should make the persons happy to know if they never update their computer and keep the same one the rest of their life, the music they purchased will play, probably. Really!

My suggestion to anyone who bought any music from these bozos, burn the music to audio CDs and then rip them back to their computer as MP3s. This will kill the DRM, but will lose some audio quality. I guess this solution is better than silence! Let's face it DRM sucks.

Microsoft dumped the MSN Music store on November 14, 2006 after less than two years in operation, along with its "PlaysForSure" partners when it launched the Zune with its propriety store that sells music that ONLY plays on the Zune.

After years in the marketplace, the Zune has been mostly a failure. I have still never seen one in the the wild. I know, each year I hear how the Zune will do this or that. If I were as Zune customer, I would not be too sure that they will wind up screwed over just like the MSN Music customers are now.

If you do not believe me read CNET Molly Wood's blog post, "5 reasons my Zune is dead to me." She was once anti- iPod and has mostly been anti- Apple. Now she has finally realized what many iPod users always knew.

Don't get me wrong. I hate all DRM and that includes iTunes DRM. But with the very poor user experience like the Zune, the chances of the plug being pulled is far greater. After being in the market for years, Microsoft is just now getting around to allowing the Zune to play audiobooks from Audible and thinking about podcasts and video content to be available!

Let's remember, that it is Microsoft that has made a business out of selling its DRM technology. They even pushed their technology that did not allow audio CDs to be ripped to iTunes or play in any computer that did not have the latest Windows Media Player installed. By that way this version was only available on Windows computers.

The iPod has killed the Zune with over 80% of the market and the iPhone will help bury it further. Microsoft’s screwed over their longtime partners who built mp3 players and music stores based on Microsoft’s DRM technology. Now they are screwing the very customers that bought the tracks. How long with the public buy from a bully who does not care about them?

Read the post I wrote called Beware the Zune, Know the Facts, I am amazed how much of what I wrote is still relevant. I wrote this on November 26th, 2006 right after the Zune launch.

HD Movie rentals (720P) will be available in February on the Apple TV only. Apple has announced the Apple TV will receive a major software update in the next week or so to allow rentals while cutting the price of the unit to $229. Once the Apple TV software is updated you will be able to rent movies in standard definition or HD directly from your Apple TV without the need of a computer. Most of the HD movies for rent will include 5.1 Dolby surround sound and will cost $3.99 for library titles and $4.99 for newer titles, just a dollar more than the standard definition versions. As of this writing no rented movies can be played on the Apple TV until it receives the expected software update.

As I said earlier only the current iPods can play rented movies. This leaves out the 5G and 5.5G iPod video. This is most probably due to the copy protection scheme (DRM) Apple has come up with for rented content. Apparently the older iPods lack the needed technology to play back this copy protected content.

When renting movies that you want to watch on your computer, iPod or iPhone you select it in the iTunes Store Movie section and pick "RENT MOVIE" on your computer using iTunes. You do not have to wait until the entire file is downloaded to start watching it. It will play within 30 seconds to a minute or two on most modern broadband connections. When the download begins you will see a new category on the left side of iTunes called "Rented Movies" appear.

Apple allows you to "move" your rental to your iPod or iPhone. You can watch part of it on the computer move it to your iPod or iPhone and pick it up where you left off, if you like. In order to move the movie to your portable device you must connect your iPod or iPhone to iTunes (sync). Select your device on the left, go to the Movie tab where you will see a new section that allows you to move the rental to your device. Click the "Move" button next to the movie and then click the "Apply" button at the bottom. You can only move it to one device at a time.

You must be connected to the Internet to transfer a rented movie. Once "moved" to your iPod it is no longer available in iTunes as it is "moved" not copied. Moving the rental usually only takes a few minutes. Once the file is finished syncing to your iPod or iPhone you can eject your device and watch the movie. You will find it in the new Rental menu under Video.

You can move it back to iTunes and another iPod or iPhone if you like within the time frame of the rental. Just move the Movie Rental back to iTunes and then move it to another compatible device.

Analog Hole The current iPods and iPhone have the ability to play video on a TV as long as you have an Apple-authorized, authentication chip-equipped accessory or cable. Many older third-party add-ons will not allow video out on the newer iPods or iPhone as they lack this chip. Apple sells new $49 cables to allow for video out. They make composite and component versions. Also Apple Universal Docks allow for video out using S-Video out. I have both the Apple Composite AV Cable and an older Apple Universal Dock that has S-VHS out. Now this leads me to the "analog hole" discussion.

For years copy protection schemes (DRM) have suffered from what is known as the "analog hole" as a way to copy video and audio. The Apple DRM used on the new iTunes Movie Rentals is no different. After renting a movie from iTunes Store I "moved" it to an iPod Classic and was able to play out video and audio from my iPod to my Sony flat screen HDTV without any issues using both the Apple Composite AV Cable and an older Apple Universal Dock.

I tested this playback from my iPod using the Apple Universal Dock with S-Video and RCA audio directly into a Panasonic DVD-R deck and successfully recorded the movie. It made a acceptable recording from the standard definition movie. One problem was I realized was the movie I tested was a little over 2 hours long and my DVD-R stopped at its two hour setting a bit short. I could have chosen a longer record time but quality would have surely suffered a bit.

Next, I decided to test recording my iPod from the Apple Universal Dock with S-Video and RCA audio directly into my Elgato EyeTV 200 (older model) that is connected to my Mac mini. I set the EyeTV software to record at the high quality DVD setting. The EyeTV can export recordings to H.264 video that is Apple TV, iPod or iPhone compatible. This achieved a very decent watchable recording.

Of course recording these standard definition movies is time consuming (must be recorded in real time) and a pain, not to mention taking up lots of hard drive space and that's the point. Apple has priced the rentals to match most video rental stores and even though DVDs are easily ripped, most people either don't know how or don't bother. The only real way to curb piracy is to compete with it.

HD video does not usually suffer from the "analog hole" problem. As the only real way to display HD video is via HDMI which has copy protection built-in or component (RGB). There are really no readily available component recorders that can record this HD signal. Set top boxes that support HD video and sport composite or S-Video outputs can only output standard definition video from these ports. The Apple TV has only HDMI and component video outputs.

Apple has put together a great alternative to driving to the video store or waiting for discs to come in the mail. By signing up every major Hollywood studio I suspect the selection will be pretty decent in time. Apple is promising Movie Rentals after only 30 days of DVD release for most flicks. The pricing is compelling and it is hard to beat renting HD quality movies with surround sound from your couch when the Apple TV joins the rental party in a few weeks. These HD movies will be 720P and are less than Blu-ray's 1080P resolution, but will be quite great looking anyway.

I agree with Steve Jobs when he says "people want to own their music and rent movies." Apple is betting big on this reasoning. Sony's Blu-ray may win in the format war against HD-DVD, without the help of Apple as they have yet to support Blu-ray by making it available in any Mac. But services like Apple's iTunes Movie Rentals may actually slow the sale of these still pretty expensive high definition disc players. The only way to combat HD downloads is to see $99 Blu-ray players and plenty of rental movies available for them. As most households with home theatre probably have broadband, Sony may find themselves behind Apple repeating what had to be an iPod nightmare for them all over again.

It is not however a fair comparison. The iPod had from day one the ability to play the music you already owned. In fact, when the iPod launched that is all there was as the iTunes Store did not yet exist. The iPod has always had the ability to play DRM-free MP3s and and AAC tracks ripped from your own CDs or purchased from some other online stores.

Apple offers many DRM-free songs at the iTunes Store these days. But, even after you buy tracks from iTunes that have DRM you are able to easily burn them to CD. You also have the ability to play these tracks on up to five computers and as many iPods or Apple TVs as you like. Of course for videos this is a different story.

Amazon has seemed to have gotten a lot right with the Kindle as far as the user experience and probably even the hardware. But the Amazon model for the Kindle has some clear shortcomings.

The books, newspapers, and magazines you purchase for the Kindle can only be read on one device and are totally entrenched with proprietary DRM. There is no computer syncing at this time. Your existing PDFs can not be read on the device (Sony's E-Book readers can display PDFs). Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) need to be emailed to the Kindle at a small cost to you.

If the Kindle were to become the "future for reading" as some have already claimed it will become a world were sharing a newspaper or a book is a thing of the past.

Amazon does allow you to re-download your purchased content in case of a hardware failure or when you are forced to delete your device to make space for more content. There seems to be no way to really build a library as with physical books or with your music as the iPod/iTunes allows.

I know people that own iPods and have never bought any content from the iTunes Store and have still enjoyed the device. There is also tons of free podcasts and choices of DRM-free music from Amazon's MP3 Store and EMusic. Without Amazon’s DRM-protected content (solely controlled by Amazon), the Kindle is pretty worthless.

You can not even really browse the Internet with it. Sure you can read "selected" blogs on the Kindle, but you need to pay for each one to be placed on your Kindle since it does not use the standard RSS feed or have a full featured browser. The blogs would need to be converted to this DRM format to read them on the device.

Amazon's model for the Kindle is this in a nutshell: Pay for downloadable books that can’t be printed, shared, or read on any device other than Amazon’s own $400 device with no way to build a library.

Surely this is not the same as the iPod model that Apple has its business on. As cool as the Kindle looks it is to be seen if it is a big seller when users realize these shortcomings.

• Automatic process in background: no need to run the application 24/7; silent and unobstructive
• Intelligent: downloads the right episode as soon as it is available
• Quality selection: choose a quality setting (Normal, High or Very High), TVShows downloads the best available one

• Stay as it is with each competing online store using a different, and incompatible, DRM schemes that works with different devices.
• Apple could licenses its FairPlay to others and why this probably would NOT work.
• The music industry agrees to allow their music to be sold in online stores without ANY DRM.